Hill Country Delivers in Flatiron; Music Coffeehouse Comes to ChelseaAstoria: “Restaurant/cafe/bar/club type establishment” Apollon has closed. [Joey in Astoria]
Chelsea: Next Tuesday music production school DubSpot is opening a cafe on 14th Street at 9th Avenue that will feature La Colombe coffee. [Blog Chelsea]
Flatiron: Hill Country’s now delivering from 21st to 31st Street between 8th avenue and Park, but if you order enough ’cue they’ll lug it anywhere. [Grub Street]
Forest Hills: Shwarma destination On the Grill now sprinkles fried, lemony, Moroccan style jalapeños on its platters. [Gothamist]
East Village: Il Buco is closed for yearly renovations, but will reopen September 5th. [Grub Street]
Harlem: Canines and their humans can unite this Saturday for the first St. Nick’s Dog Park Coffee Bark of September. [Uptown Flavor]

Openings7/2/2007

Former Roadside Wreck Home to New Hamptons BBQ
It has taken a little longer than expected, but Townline BBQ, the new Hamptons joint from the group that runs Nick & Toni’s, is nearly ready to open its doors. The restaurant occupies the space that housed Alison on the Beach, which had to be vacated because it was close to being condemned. (“The insurance company wouldn’t insure us anymore,” says Alison on the Beach owner Alison Becker-Hurt. “We had to move out.” This goes a long way to explaining why the town dragged its heels for so long before granting a certificate of occupancy for Townline.)

NewsFeed6/28/2007

Need a Meat-Smoking Sidecar? Call ‘American Chopper’!
The mind of Andrew Fischel, the brash young owner of RUB barbecue, never seems to rest. The last time we looked, he was opening up a giant spinoff in Vegas, and had retooled the New York branch with the loudest neon sign this side of Times Square. Now Fischel has engaged the guys at Orange County Chopper to create a customized “RUB Chopper” with a working smoker as its sidecar. “We’re creating the most kick-ass mobile barbecue vehicle ever made,” Fischel says. “It costs as much as a Bentley.”

Mediavore6/28/2007

New York Rated Top BBQ City in the U.S.; Kobayashi Making Bookies SkittishNew York is listed as the No. 1 destination for BBQ in the U.S.(Memphis, in case you were wondering, was No. 10.) [BizJournal]
World-champion competitive eater Joey Chestnut isn’t buying talk of Takeru Kobayashi being hurt: The Tsunami “could come to the Fourth of July with his jaws wired shut, and I’m sure he could still do all right; he’s that good of an eater.” [NYT]
Related: Hot-Dog-Eating Champ Struck With Jaw Arthritis Determined to Gulp On
The odds-makers, though, aren’t as confident about a crippled Kobayashi, and the board shows it. [McBrooklyn]

Mediavore3/8/2007

John’s Is Back, If Not Better Than Ever; Colors in the RedDon’t worry about Lonesome Dove’s Tim Love. He’s doing fine back in Texas. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
John’s reopens, none the worse for wear after their brief run-in with the Health Department. [amNY]
Colors, the cooperative founded by former Windows on the World workers, continues to struggle with the economic realities of opening and running a Manhattan restaurant. [NYT]